Simulations of shallow water surface waves and comparison with water table experiments

Interaction of surface waves with vorticity in shallow water.

Vortical flows in shallow water interact with long surface waves by virtue of the nonlinear terms of the fluid equations. Analytical formulae are derived that quantify the spontaneous generation of such waves by unsteady vorticity as well as the scattering of surface waves by vorticity. In a first Born approximation the radiated surface elevation is linearly related to the Fourier transform of ...

Shallow Water Waves and Solitary Waves

Glossary Deep water A surface wave is said to be in deep water if its wavelength is much shorter than the local water depth. Internal wave A internal wave travels within the interior of a fluid. The maximum velocity and maximum amplitude occur within the fluid or at an internal boundary (interface). Internal waves depend on the density-stratification of the fluid. Shallow water A surface wave i...

Soliton turbulence in shallow water ocean surface waves.

We analyze shallow water wind waves in Currituck Sound, North Carolina and experimentally confirm, for the first time, the presence of soliton turbulence in ocean waves. Soliton turbulence is an exotic form of nonlinear wave motion where low frequency energy may also be viewed as a dense soliton gas, described theoretically by the soliton limit of the Korteweg-deVries equation, a completely int...

Nonlinear edge waves and shallow-water theory

Visual simulation of shallow-water waves

A commodity-type graphics card (GPU) is used to simulate nonlinear water waves described by a system of balance laws called the shallow-water system. To solve this hyperbolic system we use explicit high-resolution central-upwind schemes, which are particularly well suited for exploiting the parallel processing power of the GPU. In fact, simulations on the GPU are found to run 15–30 times faster...